Editor's Note

The Charge

Hearts will bleed.

Opening Statement

High Tension, the French fright film that made a splash in the horror
community has arrived on DVD. It's got blood, guts, decapitations, power
equipment, and a gigantic twist at the end, but is it groundbreaking horror or
another genre-clone?

Facts of the Case

Marie (Cecile De France) and Alexia (Maiwenn), two close college pals, head
off to Alexia's parents' home, a farmhouse tucked away deep in acres of
cornfields. They hope to steal away some quiet time to bone up on their
tests.

Meanwhile, as they roll up to the house in the dead of night, a mysterious
stranger in a sinister-looking truck is preparing plans of his own. Just as the
girls climb into bed, the doorbell rings. Alexia's father checks it out, is
surprised to see a strange man at the door wielding a scalpel, and the nightmare
begins.

Marie finds herself enveloped in a bloodbath. As she tries to hide from the
marauding killer, she hears the screams of mayhem echoing from downstairs. When
she finally goes to investigate, she finds a lone survivor: Alexia, bound a
gagged in chains. But before she can rescue her friend, the killer returns and
hauls her, kicking and screaming to his truck, his intentions unclear but
undeniably sinister. Marie manages to stow away and must now, in one
blood-soaked night, figure a way to find help and spring her friend from the
clutches of a maniac.

The Evidence

This is kind of a complicated review to write. While I largely enjoyed
High Tension, I still came away slightly disappointed. There is so much
working for Alexandre Aja's film, and in many, many ways High Tension is
further evidence of how much ground Hollywood has to make up in the horror
genre.

High Tension is a genuinely terrifying film…for the first hour
or so. Then it switches gears and becomes a survival thriller, but more on that
in a bit. For the majority of its runtime, the film delivers the suspense. Aja
sets up the atmosphere of dread early on with a profoundly demented first peek
at the villain.

And when the slaughter begins at the farmhouse, things really get nuts. The
fear is tactile, and the way the scenes are shot worked marvelously in sucking
me into the on-screen happenings.

If I had to point to one element of the film that worked so well it is the
sound. High Tension is as aural a movie as I've seen, depending heavily
on the sound effects; this is a flick that scares you from your ears,
inward.

Even now as I write this review, I am haunted less by the gore (and there is
plenty) and more by the squeaks of the killer's shoes on the floor, or his
labored breathing as he walks up the stairs, or the dull sound his bloodied
scalpel makes when he wipes it off on his overalls.

I would go so far as to say that High Tension is one of the finest
examples of a sound use for any film I've seen, and hearing it in digital
surround makes it that much more absorbing.

This kick-ass sound is bolstered by some horrifying imagery. The kills in
this film are graphic and brutal and messy. In one of the supplemental
interviews included on this disc, Aja claims that his movie isn't that bloody.
Right. Compared to some of the "horror" that Hollywood has churned out
recently, High Tension is gorier than a marathon of those Learning
Channel surgery shows.

The last filmmaking element I wanted to note was the pacing. Aja takes his
sweet time setting up his suspense sequences, and is not afraid to draw out
shots to squeeze as much edge-of-your-seat-riding as possible. Two stand-out
scenes include the killer searching Marie's bedroom for her, while she cowers
under the bed, and a sweet segment where Marie hides out in a bathroom stall in
the biggest restroom ever, and the killer slowly moves from stall to stall,
opening the door, hefting his sinew-drenched axe. Again, all aided by great
sound-work—the short gasping huffs of Marie, the step step step of
the killer's boots on the tile floor that diabolical mouth-breathing.

So it's a damn scary movie for the first hour. Then the film changes tone,
before eventually unveiling a gigantic plot twist. The tone change I was down
with; it acted like a release from the relentless suspense created in the prior
hour, and actually was quite exciting. But when that twist hits, man, things get
real goofy.

My initial reaction was "Okay, this is pretty cool," but after the
film ended and I had a few minutes to think about it, a lot of the things that
happened prior didn't add up. Sure without the twist, High Tension would
be much simpler film, but in my opinion, that's when it was working the best. As
another spin on the tired slasher picture, that first hour scared the Cool Whip
out of me. The twist made it more of a gimmick film, and while it was kind of
cool in the moment, the residual effect is one of disillusionment.

So would I recommend this film? For horror fans, absolutely. Some people
might have a different reaction to the endgame and might really dig it. For my
nickel, I can see why Aja put it in, but at the end of the day I think the film
would have been better served without it.

Lions Gate has put together a really nice presentation for this film. The
sound and picture quality are rock solid, with a sharp anamorphic 1.85:1
widescreen transfer and an aggressive 5.1 mix (see above). Just be warned: the
English language track feature some hackneyed dubbing.

A healthy shipment of extras accompanies the feature. Alexandre Aja and lays
down two commentary tracks, one a feature-length with co-writer Gregory
Levasseur, the other for selected scenes with Cecile De France. Aja is
especially eager to share his thoughts on horror and genre filmmaking on a
budget (not to mention taking a swipe or two at Hollywood).

Two featurettes, "Haute Horror: Making of High Tension" and
"Building Tension," offer in-depth perspective behind-the-scenes; the
former speaks to the machinations that went into bringing the film to life, the
latter focuses on the specific stylistic choices the director made to create
suspense. Lastly, "Gianetto De Rossi: The Truth, the Madness and the
Magic" looks at the make-up effects for the film.

A nice package, through and through.

The Rebuttal Witnesses

High Tension is not above slipping into stupid horror-film
conventions. It's unfortunate, but a staple of the genre I believe—defying
physics and common sense. So, a few things I learned from High
Tension:

1. Girls that weigh less than 100 pounds can wield gigantic power saws with
ease. 2. The human spine is very, very fragile. 3. Cars in France
won't start after the brakes have been applied. 4. Gas station convenience
stores stock axes.

Closing Statement

Despite its shortcomings, and my relative unease with the gimmick plot twist,
High Tension is still one of the messiest, thrilling, and all-out
terrifying horror flicks I've seen in a while.